Tag: Strikeforce

UFC Hall of famer and rock hipster Randy Couture stopped by Spike’s MMA Uncensored television program recently and discussed a wide range of topics. Our favorites were when he talked about his former teammate Chael Sonnen fighting Jon Jones for the light heavyweight title, Alistair Overeem getting a title shot when he returns from his failed drug test suspension and the future of Strikeforce and, specifically, one of their lightweight prospects Ryan Couture.

Randy said that he was “not terribly surprised,” that Chael got the TUF coaching gig opposite Jones and a promised title shot. “This is a business and Chael Sonnen is going to bring it and hype up any single fight that he’s in.”

Couture also believes that Chael has a fighting chance against Jones, if he can employ the right game plan.

(Let’s just say that Cristiane has a way of “convincing” men to do what she wants. We won’t give away the secret, but it involves a garden hose, a tub of creamed corn, a circus midget, and a LOT of tears.)

Over the past few months, we’ve seen UFC President Dana White pull a 180 on such topics as TRT, fights that “make sense,” and most importantly, women’s MMA. Where less than a year ago, Dana could be quoted as saying that we would “never” see women in the UFC – unless they were informing us what round it is, of course — nowadays, his attitude seems to have shifted in the opposite direction. This could partially be due to the success of such smaller promotions as InvictaFC, but is more a result of Dana’s budding fascination with Ronda Rousey, who he has referred to as “unique,” “a Diaz brother,” and “a f*cking dude trapped in this beautiful body.” We’re not sure how he would consider the second quality to be all that endearing, but needless to say, The Baldfather recently informed Sports Illustrated that WMMA is on its way to the UFC:

MMA Fighting caught up with Dana White last night in Rio after UFC 153 to dig into topics not fully explored during the post fight presser and the Prez had some interesting things to say. The most ear-catching thing for us came near the end of the interview when White said that the UFC was hoping to have suspended heavyweight Alistair Overeem fight for the title against the winner of Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos as soon as he was cleared to.

Overeem came to the UFC in late 2011 and earned a title shot after stopping former champion Brock Lesnar in the first round. This, of course, came after he led the Nevada State Athletic Commission on an international goose chase as they tried to get him to complete his pre fight drug tests.

Then as he was nearing his next fight, Alistair tried to run out on a random drug test conducted by the commission and then, when he ultimately did take it, failed. As a result, he’s currently suspended.

We know the discussion of the injury curse is beyond old news at this point, but is anyone else still having trouble coming to terms with the pure scale of devastation it has wreaked on the sport in 2012? Even the UFC has been forced to, as BG put it, scrape the bottom of the matchmaking barrel for available fighters and they’ve poached upwards of half the fighters that Strikeforce previously had under their banner, to the point that one key injury could completely undo a card. Thank God the UFC would never be forced to resort to such drastic measures.

In either case, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker was already looking to the future when discussing the second straight cancellation:

Due to a series of injuries, we were forced to cancel the upcoming card on Nov. 3, but are already working to put together a stacked card in January.

‘Inside MMA’ has heard from multiple sources that the relationship between Strikeforce and Showtime may be coming to an end. We are being told that the November 3rd event is in serious jeopardy, and there is a strong possibility that Showtime will no longer broadcast Strikeforce events. This could very possibly signify the end of the Strikeforce brand. Strikeforce was purchased by Zuffa, the UFC parent company, in March of 2011. We have yet to receive any word from either Showtime or Strikeforce as this development continues.

When Frank Mir got injured and had to pull out of his scheduled fight with Strikeforce champion Daniel Cormier for their scheduled November 3rd fight Dana White asked UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione to fill in for Mir. On Saturday White told reporters that Mitrione had turned down the fight and that he was not happy about it.

“It fucking makes me sick,” White said, according MMA Junkie. “Listen, you don’t want big opportunities, I hear you. I get it, then. All I can say is, I guess he doesn’t want big opportunities. I get it. Duly noted.”

White went on to say that Mitrione’s decision to just continue to train for his already scheduled December 29th against Phil De Fries was “fucking insane.”

“It makes no sense to me, and it’s insane. I’m a little bummed out by it. We’ll figure it out. Yeah, [Mitrione has already got a fight booked]. He said, ‘I’ll just take that one.’”

(With her continued film success, we may never get to see Gina weigh in for a fight again. Alas…)

Former MMA champ Gina Carano has been tied to yet another Hollywood major motion picture, according to Variety:

As ‘Haywire’ star Gina Carano continues to establish herself as an action heroine with an upcoming turn in ‘The Fast and the Furious 6,’ the former MMA fighter has become attached to topline an all-female riff on ‘The Expendables.’

And you thought you were turned on by watching the original Expendables flicks, nation. We can get behind this project for sure.

We don’t know much else about the film yet but Adi Shankar, who produced The Grey, Dredd 3D and Brad Pitt’s new mobster movie, Killing Them Softly, is going to be producing it.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to make a movie that is supposed to be the female version of ‘The Expendables’ without Gina Carano in it,” Shankar was reported as saying. “It would be like making Twix without caramel or Jamba Juice without jamba.”

Yeah, those are two really weird examples to use as analogies but we’re excited to see Carano in anything that involves her kicking ass in very little or at least tight clothing.

(Seen here: The WMMA fight that men and women around the world would *definitely* tune in to.)

If we know anything about Strikeforce female bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, it’s that she is not one to let go of a grudge. On the heels of yet another dominant armbar finish over Sarah Kaufman in August, Rousey was quick to call out the roided-up thorn in her side that the general public knows as Cris Cyborg. As it turned out, Cyborg had been removed from the building beforehand, but the table was nonetheless set for possibly the biggest fight in WMMA history. The only problem with this matchup appeared to be Cyborg’s insistence that she simply could not cut the weight necessary to challenge Rousey for her title. Rousey was also adamant about her desire to stay at 135, and the two have been locked in a stalemate ever since.

But that hasn’t stopped either party from continuing the endless war of words with one another. True to form, Rousey has lobbed significantly more verbal bombs at Cyborg as of late, mainly in regard to her past steroid use. Her most recent attacks took place on The MMA Hour:

If you can make 145 [pounds] while you’re super juiced out, you can make 135 if you’re clean.

Cyborg has never had a fair fight. If you really look at it, she’s had fights where she came in and outweighed the other girl by 12 pounds and then they still fought. This girl has a long history of cheating and using drugs, and coming in overweight, and no one’s ever put their foot down ever about it.

While Rousey has every right to criticize Cyborg’s history, to say that she’s never had a fair fight seems a bit audacious on her part. Sure, the opponents placed before Cyborg were little more than lambs being led to the killing field, lambs who stood next to no chance of beating Cyborg in this or any other dimension, but….we forgot what point we were trying to make. In any case, while we’re on the subject of audacious claims, Rousey followed up her anti-Cyborg rant by claiming that a fight with the former Strikeforce featherweight women’s champ would be “the biggest fight in MMA history.”

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Muhammed Lawal is truly as carefree as he sounds or if “King Mo” just doesn’t want us to see him sweat. The former All-American wrestler and current MMA light heavyweight has been embattled recently.

After exploding onto the international fight scene in 2008 Lawal suffered a violent loss, his first, to Rafael Cavalcante in 2010. In 2011 and early 2012 he got back on the winning track, stringing together two-straight but then Lawal had his win over Lorenz Larkin overturned after he failed a post-fight drug test.

When we ask Lawal how he’s managed to stay focused and sane throughout it all he says, “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Really?

“All I care about is providing for my family,” he tells CagePotato. “And MMA is a small part of what I do to make a living.”

It certainly is about to become just one of two professional athletic careers that Lawal uses to make ends meet. Since being released by Strikeforce, Lawal has signed with Bellator and Total Nonstop Action wrestling. The idea is for him to simultaneously and regularly take part in professional wrestling and pro MMA.

“Right now no one wants to fight Jon Jones, but shit, I’ll do it. I’ll fight Jon Jones,” Cormier said.

“Guys are turning down the fight; you have to go to an old school fighter like Vitor Belfort to step up to the plate. That’s no knock on Machida or Shogun, but if those guys want to coach on The Ultimate Fighter and move off to the side and let me fight Jones, I’ll do it. If no one wants the title shot then give it to Daniel!”